The boxy “Car of Tomorrow,” which debuted in 2007, has been shelved in favor of the new “Generation Six” car.

After years of complaints that COT specifications made all the cars look the same, with no brand identity, NASCAR and the original equipment manufacturers participating in Sprint Cup worked to create the Gen-6.

The Gen-6 car has a different shape and more brand identity than the Car of Tomorrow. (Jim Fluharty/NASCAR Illustrated)

“The car looks great; it looks like a racecar to me,” Dale Earnhardt Jr. said. “I can get excited about that. I can get behind that.

“The cars that you see in the garage, you will stand there and see Fords, Toyotas and Chevrolets driving. It’s great because everything looks different. Everything is instantly recognizable.”

While strengthening brand identity was the driving force behind the Gen-6, NASCAR and the OEMs hope some of the changes lead to easier passing and more side-by-side racing.

The car is 150 pounds lighter—minus 80 pounds on the right and 70 on the left—and the minimum weight for drivers has been reduced from 200 to 180 pounds.

While the wheelbase remains at 110 inches, the length of the car was reduced by 6.3 inches—from 198.5 inches to 192.2. The width also was increased by three inches—from 74 inches to 77. There were no significant changes to the height (54.2 inches) or ground clearance (3.5 inches).

“The potential is there for it to create much better racing,” Cup champion Brad Keselowski said. “There are boxes that are opening up with the car. The most significant is the car is lighter and has better weight distribution.

“That should allow Goodyear to build a better tire that is less prone to failure and permits side-by-side racing because of its grip-to-aero-balance that the car generates.”

As the teams put more test miles on the Gen-6, NASCAR will likely make more minor changes in an effort to improve competition on the track.

“We’re just working on the smaller things — splitter sizes, underbody stuff, spoiler sizes and things that we can do to help the car run better in traffic,” NASCAR VP of competition Robin Pemberton said late last year and NASCAR and the teams were still developing and testing the car.

Another significant development with the Gen-6 is the attempt to do away with “crabbing” — where the rear of the car is skewed to the right.

Crabbing was achieved by altering several rear suspension components and it improved handling by increasing downforce and sideforce.

“Everybody did it to some degree,” Germain Racing crew chief Bootie Barker said. “Instead of having moveable bushings, you don’t have those anymore, you’re limited on your truck-arm split and you cannot run a rear sway bar (except at the road courses). Elements that went into crabbing have been taken away.

“We’re either going to have to find some other way to do it or just not do it.”

With the new racecars looking more like their production car counterpart, the OEMs were anxious to do away with crabbing.

“None of us want to see our cars going down the straightaways already at 3-4 degrees of yaw,” said Andy Graves, Toyota Racing Development VP of chassis engineering. “It doesn’t look right; it doesn’t look good. All of the teams were working within the rules to do that—and there’s a huge performance gain by doing that—so NASCAR is taking steps to eliminate it.

“They have added some extra downforce on the cars, which helps the drivers and the teams not miss the performance they gained from crabbing.

“At the end of the day, for all of us to see our cars go straight on the straightaways, it’s going to be better for the sport.”

After testing the Gen-6 car, Earnhardt agreed that doing away with crabbing was a good move.

“I don’t miss any of that stuff,” he said. “It did make the cars go faster, but they were a little bit more of a challenge to drive. The sensations that you got going off in the corner crooked weren’t a lot of fun.

“I kind of like going in the corner with the car going straight, like it’s supposed to.”